Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
C hainsaw…
Her expression was one of stone, her clear green eyes keen as she looked over at LaCroix and Alina, quietly discussing something as they looked back our way.
The boys had been filled in as much as I could via our own sort of pseudo-language we used via text. They knew something was up, that I was with a woman, and that I needed a short church meeting. That was about it.
Meeting up here this morning was exactly what it was. Bennie had been helping the girls at the shop, Hex and Lacroix had dropped theirs off, and it was the plan that I get over here and meet up with Bennie and them, so Bennie wasn’t watching the three of them solo.
While I hadn’t been late, I wasn’t exactly on time. I was supposed to meet them at the shop, not the café, but Bennie had assured me I was all good to take a few extra minutes. That things were good.
We tried to keep to crowded public places with the girls – it was safer, but not foolproof.
We knew how Ruth thought, and we knew he would avoid a big public scene for right now.
Collateral damage wasn’t the way to go in this war.
It would only bring in the feds. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t resort to that kind of trouble the longer things dragged out.
LaCroix and Genesis locked eyes across the expanse of tables, chairs, and citizens between them, and her careful mask slipped.
I could see the fear in her eyes, and it wasn’t a bad one, but a healthy one.
She knew danger when she saw it, and her experience growing up in the life and as a doctor probably pegged LaCroix for the dangerous, and more than slightly unhinged motherfucker that he was.
When she did tear her eyes from LaCroix’s blacked-out inked ones, it was to drift to Hex’s, and her mask of polite professionalism locked immediately back into place.
They studied each other a moment, and she saw it – that Hex was even more dangerous – that he was the real brains behind just about everything that we did.
“You good?” I asked her, and she tore her green gaze from my brothers’ and put it back on me, which I took a sort of silent satisfaction in. I liked her eyes on me.
“Of course,” she said mildly. “Why wouldn’t I be?” I winked at her, and she blushed slightly as she recognized that she’d been caught.
“Just checking in,” I said mildly.
“All good here,” she lied, and her smile brightened to the point I couldn’t be sure if it was disingenuous or not.
She was good. I had to give her that.
I turned and caught Bennie’s eye, who gave me some chin in a nod that said, so far, he saw it, too, and he approved.
That was good to know.
Hex and LaCroix joined us at the table, taking their ladies’ seats and pulling their women into their laps.
I made the introductions…
“Genesis Bordelon, meet our club president, LaCroix.” LaCroix gave her a nod. “And our VP Hex,” I finished.
“Well, howdy.” Hex gave her a wink.
“Discuss back at the club,” LaCroix said simply, and I gave a nod even as Genesis murmured, “It’s nice to meet y’all.”
“You and LaCroix want anything?” Bennie asked, jerking his head to inside the café.
“Naw, not for me,” Hex said. LaCroix didn’t answer. He was too busy boring a hole through Genesis with his dark gaze.
To her credit, she didn’t do anything to give her thoughts away, just sat in her place and sipped her coffee with the most neutral expression on her face that to outsiders probably gave boredom, but to me? It just read as careful.
We all sat at the table, locked into that careful silence, finishing up our coffee and beignets, the girls silently gathering up the mess of cardboard boats and empty cups.
Things were getting palpably awkward now.
The polite chatter about the shop had come to a halt, and everyone had become stiff with LaCroix’s silent interest, but clear signals that Genesis was an outsider who needed to be vetted.
To do that meant church and having a conversation that was a little out of our ordinary to set the ground rules and clear the air.
To her credit, the good doctor clearly saw it coming and knew the structure, if not the precise procedure, that was pretty much unique to every club.
“Good day for a ride,” I commented dryly. There was a mix of silent nods, murmurs of agreement, and a couple of brighter smiles and a rise in enthusiasm at the thought of getting our knees in the warm green breeze coming off the mighty Mississippi.
“Clear blue skies, not so very hot, and relatively low humidity. It won’t stay that way for long, so we best enjoy it while it lasts,” Hex agreed, stretching luxuriously now that Cor was off his lap.
He stood up to complete his stretch and opened his arms for her return, as she slid her arm beneath his cut to hug nice and close to her man’s body.
I felt a deep, fractured ache of longing for something like that.
I couldn’t lie about that. I was jealous of the brothers in our club who’d found themselves women of worth.
I longed to have something like it for myself.
Someone who was smart, shrewd, and who I didn’t have to babysit or police her behavior in exchange for the use of her pussy, like the girls who came around to party and for a thrill ride.
I was getting to an age and set of life circumstances that my thoughts were turning toward a lasting legacy and living comfortably, rather than the desire for a cheap thrill.
Shit, us having to be on our toes constantly lately was more than enough thrill for me – and that thrill was getting fucking old, fast.
“You look thoughtful all of a sudden.”
Genesis’s words hit me like a bucket of ice water, snapping me out of my reverie.
“Sorry,” I grunted, and she shook her blonde head, her sheathed ponytail swishing leather on leather against the back of her wine-red jacket.
“Don’t be,” she said. “Seems there’s more than a lot to consider, everything going on.
” She sounded a mix between rueful and guarded, which telegraphed a deep fear that things weren’t going to get better for her.
That she was once again facing a roadblock to any aid in getting the shit stain who’d left a bunch of dead cats on her fence out of her life for good.
Only way he’s sticking around is over my literal dead body, I thought to myself.
I owed her, but I also knew how most citizens, and yeah, even biker men, acted. All talk and no actual game or follow-through.
That wasn’t me. That wasn’t the Voodoo Bastards.
We didn’t write checks with our mouths that our asses couldn’t cash.
We just needed to figure out how things were going to go.
I just needed to figure out how to balance my duties and my debts.
The timing was shit, but then again, when it came to shit like this? When was the timing ever good?
We got up, moving for the bikes, and piled on. La Croix and Hex passed us, and I fell in behind as we swept up the block. Bennie and Sandy slipped out of their spot and joined the core group beside me and Gen.
Bennie signaled, and I dropped back. He slid over in front of me, and I slid to the side and back up next to him so we were in proper formation befitting our positions within the club.
I was just a member, while Bennie was an officer as club secretary, so it was his privilege to ride behind LaCroix, while I followed up Hex.
It was a respect thing, and while I’d passed on holding any kind of officer position due to my job and not wanting the responsibility at the time, I handed the respect owed to Bennie for the position he held and moved the fuck over.
If we weren’t in the middle of the huge beef that we were with the Bayou Brethren, it probably wouldn’t have mattered to either of us.
Considering the internal conflict within the Voodoo Bastards had begun over not sticking to the club’s charter and a lack of respect, we all agreed that following protocol to the letter in public, especially, was a must.
It was a small thing, but important to the lot of us.
I liked the way Genesis held on to me as we wound our way through NOLA’s streets, avoiding potholes and dangerous warps in the blacktop and asphalt laid around town.
The majority of our ride was spent flowing down St. Claude Avenue, moving back toward the club in the Ninth Ward.
It was a good ride, slow, but slow wasn’t bad.
Genesis fidgeted behind me, and I put my hand to her knee at my hip, giving it a reassuring squeeze without thinking about it.
She froze, stiffening up a bit behind me, and I caught a glimpse of her shocked Pikachu face in my side-view mirror.
My chuckle was lost in the deep rumble of the bike beneath us as the light we were waiting for changed, and I put us in gear and surged forward in the wake of Hex’s exhaust.
We made it to the club and didn’t even fuck with parking out front, pulling around the side of the building and riding down the narrow lane, single file, between the cinderblock wall and strapped fencing to around back, pulling into the big bay door and parking inside.
Axeman hit the switch, bringing the big bay door rumbling down as we backed our bikes into line in the garage.
Things were different back here. The shelves were nearly empty now that the girls had moved the majority of their stuff into the freshly renovated shop that was The Mystic’s Dream down in the Quarter.
They had a lot of shit to purge out of The Mystic’s Dream , and going out of business and flash sales had only taken care of so much.
The rest had been taken to a storage unit where the girls were running a sort of temporary shipping station out of as they sold the rest of the stock online via their existing Etsy shop.
We’d been chipping away at this shit for the better part of a year, and now that Corliss’s big payout from the city had hit, we were finally making solid fucking gains – both in the girls’ endeavor with the French Quarter shop, and the distillery in the building out back.